Yes, it’s Diabetes Alert Day, but who are all these red flags aimed at and to do what?

Who?
Around the world the who to alert on Diabetes Alert Day is hundreds of millions of people. The International Diabetes Federation offers tons of global facts and stats. Suffice to say there’s a type 2 diabetes tsunami already well on it’s way!

In the U.S. the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s  (CDC) National Diabetes Fact Sheet tells us exactly who Diabetes Alert Day is targeted to:

7 million of the 26 million people with diabetes WHO do not yet know they have diabetes. If any of these 7 million people were tested today, they could be diagnosed with diabetes. For most of these people, it’s type 2 diabetes. (26 million people with diabetes represents over 8% of our population.)

70+ million people WHO could be diagnosed with prediabetes today. (Yes, you read this number correctly. Of the estimated 79 million Americans with prediabetes (that’s 35% of American adults), only 8% (and that’s being generous) know they have prediabetes and research shows not even half of these individuals (or their healthcare providers) are taking preventive efforts to slow it’s progression (Learn more in my blog Prediabetes, But Nearly No One Knows It.)